


Your Courage Will Pull Us Through

by Sorrel_Oake



Category: Deltarune (Video Game), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (Attempted) Slavery, Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Apricorn balls are a major plot point, CWs for later in the fic:, Chara Frisk and Kris are siblings, Gen, Human-Pokemon Hybrids, Monsters are the evolutionary link between humans and pokemon, Original Pokemon, Original Pokemon Region, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pokemon Battle Royales, Pokemon Battles, Pokemon Death, Pokemon Journey, Pokemon Training, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reader-Interactive, Readers will decide Chara Frisk and Kris' starter pokemon, The evil team is really evil, Torture, and maybe sans in a qpr with toriel, backround relationships are alphyne and papyton, canon-typical child endangerment, just letting people know as a big keep out sign for homophobes, theres barely any romance stuff though it's focused on the kids and the plot, these tags ended up in a terrible order but redoing them will be a nightmare
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 13:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30005829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrel_Oake/pseuds/Sorrel_Oake
Summary: Monsters, the missing link between humans and pokemon, have lived in peace in the Delta region. Living in harmony with one pokemon partner each, they practice the powers gained from their pokemon heritage and avoid pokeballs, a human invention that could capture them like the pokemon their ancestors were.Chara, Frisk, and Kris want to visit every region from Kanto to Galar on their pokemon journeys. There's nowhere they won't go, no league they won't challenge, and no pokemon they can't befriend.When the humans arrive in the Delta region, they have no idea what they're walking into. They'll be chasing not just gym badges, but the mysterious Team SOUL that's left the cities terrified and near-abandoned, and the mysterious grass-type specialist who joined the League Challenge at the last moment.FOR A LIMITED TIME: YOU CAN VOTE IN THE COMMENTS ON WHETHER CHARA, FRISK, AND KRIS TAKE THE FAKEMON STARTERS DESCRIBED IN CHAPTER 1 OR ANOTHER STARTER TRIO OF YOUR CHOICE. ONCE I GET SOME RESPONSES, I WILL POST CHAPTER 2, AT WHICH POINT I'LL TAKE THIS NOTE DOWN AND VOTING WILL BE OVER SINCE THEIR CHOICES WILL BE CANONIZED! THANKS SO MUCH FOR LETTING ME KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE MOST!
Relationships: Chara (Undertale) & Everyone, Frisk (Undertale) & Everyone, Kris (Deltarune) & Everyone, Minor or Background Relationship(s)





	Your Courage Will Pull Us Through

A capable pod of mantine sliced through the warm sea like waves, bearing their riders steadily towards another adventure. The sun was just beginning to show over the horizon, but the weather was already balmy, and the day promised to be a scorcher. The bay was just coming into view, and Chara raised a hand to point, squinting against the reflected sunlight. 

“Frisk, stop doing tricks for a moment and lend me your eyes. I believe our destination is drawing close.”

Frisk lost their concentration and yelped as they magikarp flopped into the chilly water. When they made it back to the surface, they shook out their curly hair like a dog and peered into the distance. Their hands moved quickly as they signed. “There’s something out there!”

“Kris, will you pass me the map?”

Kris felt around in their bag and pulled out the map they’d bought in Kalos before setting out. The digital device tracked their location, and Chara had it pass the directions to their rotom phone so that it would hover in front of them while they surfed. “Kris, I am reaching out for your hand to guide you back on course. Ready?”

Kris, who was blind, nodded and reached out a hand. Chara surfed expertly back and forth to slow down, then slipped behind their sibling so they could guide them. Frisk kickflipped their mantine into the air and did a corkscrew landing.

“Stick with us, Frisk. I am adjusting our course to arrive at the docks.”

Frisk looked at Chara and made a show of not signing anything.

The dock at Sea Port was huge and empty. At one point hundreds of boats might have loaded and unloaded their wares at the spacious docks with room for sailors and pokémon alike to travel the streets and visit the stores, but here the stores were closed and shuttered and the waves lifted only bits of wood and seaweed. 

Chara led the group up to a shack on the shore with a big wooden sign that read MANTINE TOURS. There was no one working there, but the mantine flopped happily up the shore and over the desk into a tank, where a PC began digitizing them for the journey back north to Kalos. Frisk flapped their hands happily. 

“Alright, our next stop is the league sign ups. I made the arrangements over the internet. Today is the last day to sign up, and this evening we’ll have the induction ceremony. Then in the morning we will start making our way upriver to Mount Ebott where the Elite Four is. Kris, Frisk, I want everyone holding hands until we get to the Town Hall.” They extended both hands, and Frisk took their left while Kris took their right. With Kris’ white cane whisking back and forth in front of them, the three siblings left the shack following the directions of Chara’s rotom phone.

Farther away from the port the town was still empty and silent, but there were signs of life--bright windows in houses with barred doors, “Open By Appointment” signs on shops, and flying and scuttling pokémon of all types and stripes. The closer they got to the trainer’s district, the more they saw that indicated Sea Port was not abandoned, but merely for some reason very, very shy. Inside the pokémon center a nurse and a clefable were at the desk--or mabe that was two clefables? It was hard to tell through the frosted glass.

The league administrative building was a beautiful old hall made of carved limestone with beautiful glazed mosaic tiles in a variety of purples. Stained glass windows in gothic arches bore a motif of a what they took to be a winged pokéball floating above three triangles arranged in a semicircle. The steps up had complex wrought iron railings, and the front door was tall and imposing. Chara raised a hand to the knocker on the front, with its Gogoat-shaped face, and knocked twice, clearly and loudly.

With a sudden flurry of activity every window shuttered in turn. Behind the window there was the ringing of a loud, clear, bell and voices calling out to each other. Kris sniffed and muttered “Fire’s getting put out.” 

“Have we offended them somehow? I admit I do not understand. No one said anything that seemed untoward when I called…”

Finally, the sound of pokemon claws skittering on tiles started getting louder and, with an unoiled creak, the door slid open just a crack, to the end of a chain. They could see just the edge of someone’s face, thick glasses resting on an ear the color of driftwood and the edge of an eye kept carefully out of view.

“H-h-h-hello? O-oh d-d-dear, you d-don’t l-l-look like team S-SOUL…”

Chara frowned slightly. “Team who? We are the trainers signed up for this year’s league challenge.”

“Oh d-d-d-dear, oh m-my…” The stranger’s nails clicked against each other as they wrung their hands. “I t-t-thought e-everyone had c-cancelled, a-are you s-s-sure-- oh, o-oh n-no, o-of c-course I f-forgot to c-call, and-- oh m-my, w-well I c-certainly can’t leave you out on the s-street…”

Chara smiled. “We could present some means of identification, to convince you we are not hooligans but instead your agreed-upon visitors?”

“O-o-okay, b-b-but I d-d-don’t w-w-want you all t-t-to be s-standing out i-in the s-s-streets l-like this w-while you w-wait, n-n-no, t-that’s a t-terrible i-idea…”

The door closed again, the chain was slid aside, and then it opened more fully. Standing in the door was a young woman wearing a lab coat, nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot. The first thing Chara noticed were her eyes--jet black from sclera to pupil and glittering with light, with a deep pigmented ring around each eye. Their eyes jumped from feature to feature--her hair, dyed a metallic gold and stiffened in spikes with product, a belt with no room for pokeballs, eclectic pins on the lapel with pronouns or with bands and characters, a clip in her hair with three sapphires, bare feet--wait, those weren’t feet. 

Frisk whistled softly, signing “Claws” into Chara’s hand.

Chara started signing into Kris’ hand quickly, describing the stranger to them.

Kris grabbed their hand, pausing them, and shrugged purposely. They opened their rotom phone case and took out their trainer card. “I’m Kris. What’s your name?”

“O-oh, r-r-r-right… I… I-I’m s-s-sorry, I d-d-don’t mean to s-stare… I j-just c-couldn’t b-bear if I l-let s-someone awful r-right into t-the h-heart of w-what’s l-left…” She shifted nervously. “C-can I s-see your t-trainer c-c-cards?”

Chara passed over their card, and the others did the same. She sniffed the cards suspiciously, scratching them gently with a long black claw on the end of her finger. “K-kris, Frisk, and C-Chara, huh? A-and all three born in Kanto? Y-you must’ve b-been on a l-long journey…”

Frisk grinned. “We wanted to challenge every league,” they signed.

“T-t-that’s a b-b-big goal! W-we haven’t h-had a lot of c-challengers, e-ever since… um, a-ages ago. I, um, w-well, there’s some b-big d-d-differences in the D-delta Region t-to other p-pokémon leagues…”

“I saw on your website… an entire region without pokéballs?”

The scientist shifted from foot to foot nervously. “I-I-I… I d-d-don’t l-like b-being t-the one t-to e-explain this, b-b-but, um… y-you’ve p-probably noticed t-that I’m n-not exactly h-h-human. T-the Delta R-region’s indegenous people are part p-pokémon, p-part human. W-we’re called m-monsters. L-long ago, we w-were isolated f-f-from h-h-humans in o-other regions, a-a-and w-we didn’t e-evolutionarily s-split until l-long after t-they had. O-of course, n-n-n-nobody’s interbred w-w-with p-pokémon i-in a long time, ever since we b-biologically split off, b-but t-traits like t-the p-pokémon w-w-we’re related to s-stay, l-like m-my claws a-and eyes.”

“Interesting. I presume this relates to the banning of pokéballs?”

She winced. “Y-y-y-yeah… a p-p-pokéball c-can s-snap one of us u-up like a p-pidgey and p-put us in a p-position where we h-have to obey or r-r-risk g-getting our p-pokeballs shattered or c-corrupted. T-they’re b-b-banned throughout the r-region for our s-s-safety. You can c-craft or c-commission apricorn balls t-to recruit p-pokémon, b-b-but for official b-battles we f-fight one-on-one. Y-you’ll f-f-find that m-most m-monsters are e-experts with a s-s-single move-- w-we use it t-to fight alongside our p-p-pokémon.”

Frisk jumped up and down, making big, wide, happy signs. “You mean trainer and pokemon fight next to each other right on the field? That’s awesome!”

“Y-yeah! T-the power t-that f-f-fuels p-pokémon moves c-can still be used b-by almost e-every monster. It’s our b-birthright! F-for h-humans who c-come here t-though, we have a w-wrist mounted m-machine that t-takes in a T-TM or another s-source of m-move data like a D-delta League official badge, and lets you u-unleash the m-move in b-battle!”

“...Your badges have the essence of a move in them?” Kris asked.

“N-not just any m-move, but one t-that h-helps overcome o-one of the t-traditional obstacles on a c-challenger’s trail.” She smiled. “It’s one of the c-coolest things about our r-region!”

“Cool.” Kris was trying their hardest to act like they didn’t care, but Chara could tell from the excitement and tension in their frame that they were desperate to get their hands on this machine.

“Y-yeah! Um… It’s t-traditional for us to g-give all n-new c-challengers to the D-delta League their c-choice of a s-s-starter pokemon, f-from the three i-indigenous to the r-r-realm. U-um, I r-r-really shouldn’t be telling you t-this, but i-if none of these p-pokemon s-s-strike your fancy, there’s another p-professor with m-more t-traditional starters, um P-professor Acacia h-h-has a c-c-collection of other s-starter t-trios. B-but I r-r-really recommend you t-travel with our l-local s-starters!”

Frisk looked up at Chara, making big excited signs. “Could we? Could we please?”

Chara nodded slightly. “We ought to at least meet the pokémon.”

“A-awesome! Alright, I o-only have t-three this year, um, s-since I didn’t t-think I’d r-really be h-handing them out, b-b-but I promise they’re lovely p-pokémon! Um…” She reached for a set of apricorn balls in a box on her desk.

“Okay, t-this is the l-lovely Foalfloe! T-they’re ice types who gain the p-psychic type on e-evolution. If you like f-fast, p-powerful pokémon, I t-think you’ll m-make a g-good friend in Foalfloe. This p-particular one is a l-little hasty and l-likes to run.”

She pulled the plug in the glossy, lacquered black apricorn ball painted with stars and snowflakes and sent out the foalfloe--a knee-high blueish white mini horse with a hoarfrost mane and tail. It bore a well-made saddle and tack embroidered with snowflakes, and where its hooves touched the ground a glazing of frost sprung up and died away in the heat.

“Foalfloe will g-grow into a powerful w-winged r-riding horse, w-which is why they s-seek out monsters t-to craft them t-tack. I’ll s-send whoever picks him on their w-way with a f-few larger s-sets to equip to him as he g-grows.”

The frosty horse nickered its name happily and tossed its head. Alphys fed it a piece of Leppa berry and coaxed it back into the apricorn ball, which she set back into its place in the box. 

She picked up the second ball, a matte brick-brown one with twisting black lines etched into it, and loosened the plug.

“Bashle is a s-strong pokémon with l-lots of p-passion for battle! T-they need a little bit of extra c-care when they’re young, b-before their c-conductive t-tentacles are strong enough t-to grip. Once they are, their e-electric typing will c-come in to s-suplement their f-fighting typing. T-they’re pretty g-good all-around f-fighters, s-slower than the other starters but v-very r-respectable. T-they get g-great type c-coverage, too! This B-bashle is an adamant type and v-very proud of her power.” 

From the apricorn ball sprung a powerful, wiry, humanoid pokemon. Her ruddy skin was the same color as her simple gi-style pants. She lacked arms, instead having a wiry ruff of tangled black tentacles around her neck that wiggled and flexed as she moved. Each plastic-y tentacle had two glinting copper specks sticking out of the end. Her face had a feline nature to it, save for the hard, sharp, metallic horns curving up where a cat’s ears would normally be. She noticed the humans and proudly showed off a selection of sharp kicks with her powerful feet. 

“A-as they grow up, B-bashle twist their wire tentacles into arms. You’ll need a p-pair of heavy r-rubber gloves to h-help with the process. F-for a while they’ll also be s-shy about their b-battle scars, s-so we g-give trainers a b-box of p-pretty b-bandaids to c-cover up the marks they’ll g-get until they’re ready t-to let them show. D-don’t worry! It’s r-really a n-natural and h-healthy part of e-evolution for them. Okay, c-come on back, l-little guy!” She offered the pokemon a piece of Spelon berry and recalled it to its ball, which she returned to its place.

The third ball was not painted but instead carved, with the shapes of delicate feathers etched into it down to the woody white inner layer. A clear coat of lacquer protected the ball from damage.

“Owldron is an a-amazingly tough pokémon, even if it d-doesn’t s-seem like it at first. Their diet i-includes natural s-sources of metal, o-over time they build up a defensive crest on their h-head that becomes a s-shield unique to the i-individual. S-some people think they l-look mean, b-but they’re genuine, kind, p-pokémon that f-form a c-close protective b-bond with their t-trainer, a-and I’m not just s-saying that because m-my starter Owldron w-was my b-best f-friend for a l-long time.” Her face slipped from cheery to wistful to mournful as she said it, and she shook herself a little before continuing. “They’re e-extremely defensive pokémon, it’s a-almost impossible t-to h-hurt them through their thick f-feathers. This one is a p-pretty relaxed pokémon, and they  _ love _ to eat.”

Pulling the plug in the apricorn ball, she released a bird about the size of a falcon with a ruff of feathers around their shoulders that was fluffed up to guard their face. Their beak was hooked at the end, and their powerful, fluffy, wings were held close to their sides as they hopped around the desk a little. They took flight suddenly, and the humans noticed that their whole body was muscled and strong from supporting the weight of layers of heavy feathers. They cawed their name happily and came to rest on the back of Alphys’ chair, swivelling it around under their weight.

“Owldron are p-probably the s-starter that r-requires the m-most care. I-in the wild, they are t-tremendously s-social and preen each other r-regularly. You’ll n-need a special b-brush and some s-suplements you c-can give them in c-case they can’t f-forage the metals they n-need. They’ll l-let you know if they need one--t-the s-suplements have a n-nasty flavor, s-so they w-won’t use t-them unless they n-need one, b-but they’d rather t-take a s-suplement than g-go without, so you c-can feel free to g-give them a s-suplement if they’re asking.”

The owldron snapped up the piece of Rowap berry happily and poked around for more.

“N-no, that’s a-all you get r-right now. C-come on, I’m s-sure if you g-get a new t-trainer they’ll spoil you r-rotten. B-back in the ball.” She gave them a gentle pet on the head and they went back into their ball with little more complaint.

“N-now, um, l-l-like I said, um, I can g-give you d-directions to T-- P-professor Acacia, um, if, you really w-would rather p-pick from another r-region’s s-set of starters. It’s up to you three--w-what do you think?”

Chara looked at their siblings curiously, but none of them seemed to want to make the first move.

**Author's Note:**

> Friendly reminder to leave your vote on whether Chara Frisk and Kris take the Delta region starters or another region's starters! If you want them to take another region's starters, PLEASE SPECIFY WHICH REGION in the comments. These starters will be with them for the whole story, so make good choices! I've already decided for each starter set who will probably take which pokemon but you can feel free to mention who you think should get each starter if you have a strong opinion and I'll take it into account. If I get no votes I'll go ahead with the Delta region fakemon but that doesnt mean don't vote! Thanks yall you rock!


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